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Post by Ex on Sept 10, 2023 17:13:34 GMT -5
FM2, I'm craving it after some AC this summer. I need my RTS mecha fix now! If you're craving Front Mission RTS, you'll need to play this. But if you just want some new-to-you English Front Mission, consider Front Mission 5: Scars of the War, as it fits this Club Retro. And yes, for the record, I have recommended a bunch of games to you for this CR: Ace Combat 5 PS2 (HLTB 7 hours) Eternal Ring PS2 (HLTB 10.5 hours) Front Mission 5 PS2 (HLTB 36 hours) P.N.03 GC (HLTB 3 hours) Metal Wolf Chaos Xbox (or PS4 rather) (HLTB 7 hours) That's a combined total of 63.5 hours to finish the base campaigns of all of those games (at normal non-Turbo Gamer speeds anyway). That may seem egregious, but keep in mind, I plan to play through Dishonored (HLTB 12 hours) and Dark Souls 2 (HLTB 43.5 hours) for next month's 7th Gen Club Retro, both via your recommendation. That's 55.5 hours for their base campaigns, and of course I'll do the games' DLC, which adds another 47 hours to that time investment (Scholar of the First Sin = 36 hours, Dishonored's DLC = 11 hours... maybe I'll need 12 arms and 8 heads too.) Just some perspective is all. When I give people recommendations, it's meant as friendly informed suggestions. I don't care if people don't take me up on them. It's their loss if they don't. 🤷♂️ I'm definitely looking forward to more thoughts on Nexus.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 10, 2023 18:37:45 GMT -5
I think I've beaten a lot more of your recs for me than you have haha. Always easy to remember FEAR and Dead Space, since you thought they were flat. Maybe I nudged you to hit up Demon's Souls sooner than later but you were bound to play it someday regardless. But yes it's all fun and games. I'm also never going to get mad at someone for recommending something I end up liking a lot, like a local friend of mine did with me once... seemed peeved that he liked games I suggested he play. lol, think he took it too personal how I spent 30 hours on Witcher 3 and didn't like it (which I guess for him 30 hours wasn't enough for me to rightfully judge it). Still one of the weirdest texting arguments I've ever had. Dishonored - 32.8 hours, two playthroughs and once with the DLC's Dishonored 2 - 47.6 hours, two playthroughs, once with each of the two characters (they have very different abilities) Death of the Outsider - 12.6 hours Prey - 28 hours Deus Ex Mankind Divided - 40 hours
Let's say I transform from Turbo to Ultra Methodical Gamer when it comes to immersive sims. I'm sure I spent more than average on the Thief games too. I love to 100% the maps and do everything possible. Often if there's one way into a building or whatever, I'm going to do all the ways through and scourer everything. Find all the upgrades possible, etc. I love it. This genre is gaming crack for me. Yeah DS2 will be a big investment. Can't wait to see what you think. Definitely has some KF/ST DNA in there.
I'm still flabbergasted by P.N.03's apparent length. Even for that era that's kind of like tech demo/proof of concept ... but I guess I have heard it kind of was just that for Vanquish. Too bad we got a dude instead haha. I'll definitely play it soon to check that off my Shinji Mikami list.
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Post by Ex on Sept 10, 2023 20:11:26 GMT -5
Always easy to remember FEAR and Dead Space Well I did beat Dead Space, gave it a 7/10. (Can't recall if we were ever able to get Sarge to try it? IIRC he expressed interest at one point.) I played about 1/3rd of F.E.A.R. before the drab office environs' and one note gameplay bored me. But I'm willing to give F.E.A.R. another chance someday, maybe I wasn't in the right mood for it. >he took it too personal how I spent 30 hours Thirty hours is more than enough to have an informed opinion. >DS2 will be a big investment. Can't wait to see what you think Then I'll play DS2 first for the 7th gen CR. >I'm still flabbergasted by P.N.03's apparent length It does offer reasons to replay it, and there are "trial missions" that are randomly generated between missions. The trial missions are continuously replayable as such. There's also a scoring system that encourages replaying regular missions to unlock stuff via better scores. P.N.03's very arcade-like in this regard. Not a huge investment to beat as a one-off though, I beat it in 2 hours 10 minutes. Then I sold the game, regretted that, and bought another copy for a future replay. >Vanquish. Too bad we got a dude instead Indeed, that's exactly why I gave Vanquish a 9/10 and not a 10/10. If the protagonist had been the glorious Vanessa Z. Schneider ( P.N.03's protagonist) it would have been a 10/10. Muh Simple Man™ reasons obviously.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 10, 2023 21:57:01 GMT -5
It's still super tricky grasping the old AC controls here in Nexus haha, even the update with dual analog sticks and all. Maybe I should edit some of the buttons, I think you can change everything. Otherwise L2 to boost around is feeling kind of awkward, on top of L1 being a blade or additional weapon. Definitely got spoiled by having each arm and shoulder their own input in AC6 as well. Here, you have to switch between the right arm weapon and the right shoulder manually, as in you can only use them one at a time. Makes me think maybe I shouldn't bother with missiles much and just get some shoulder mounted launchers/cannons.
I think I'll hit up AC4: For Answer when we get to the 7th gen months. Wonder how that one controls, the first AC4 didn't stick with me much so I'm not sure how it holds up. Apparently For Answer is one of the toughest ones as well. That's interesting because I thought AC4 was pathetically easy, that's the only thing I remember about it and why nothing else comes to mind.
Still not sure how to even access the arena in Nexus, or if it just pops up on the world map at times. I did one arena fight, went up a rank. Then did bad on a main mission and it knocked me down a rank in the arena too. Odd...
Whereas AC6 had like three main supplemental parts, Nexus has ~5, on top of some other slots for additional things. There's an upgrade chip system kind of like the OS upgrades in AC6, but you can only equip so much here. I basically expected the old stuff to still be more complex in this way. I'm glad Nexus at least shows some nice blue numbers when a part/weapon is better than what you have, and red for worse. Silent Line didn't even do that.
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Post by Ex on Sept 11, 2023 11:42:09 GMT -5
Title: Guilty Gear Petit 2Platform: WonderSwan Color Region release played: Japan Year of release: 2001 Developer: Arc System Works Publisher: Sammy Studios Graphics: 3/5 Audio: 2/5 Challenge: 3/5 Fun factor: 2/5 Quick Thoughts: Guilty Gear Petit 2 is the sequel to the original Guilty Gear Petit for WonderSwan Color, and this sequel was also never released outside of Japan. The gameplay is identical to its predecessor, along with having the same "super-deformed" chibi graphical style. There's a lot of reused graphic and audio assets, but a few new characters appear; Zato-1, Johnny, Axl Lou and Faust. As a sequel GGP2 is considerably unambitious, Arc seemed happy to simply add more characters to the roster and a few more background artworks. This is not a badly produced game graphically (given its platform), but its watered down combat means there's no compelling reason to stick with it for long. +More Guilty Gear Petit for GG fans that owned a WSC. +Tight and responsive controls. +The Petit series' exclusive character Fanny returns. +The story mode seems well integrated for every character (not that I could read any of it). +A chibi fighter for weirdos that like chibi. -No noticeable ambition or innovation to strive beyond the first Petit entry. -Reused assets from the first Petit entry, and the OST is rather bad in general. -Watered down, overly simple combat compared to real GG. -The AI is easy to cheese (just get them into a corner and attack mercilessly). -No English fan translation available for the story modes. Ex's time to beat: 15 minutes (played through Fanny's story mode) Ex's rating: 4/10
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Post by Chema on Sept 12, 2023 13:47:02 GMT -5
I'm playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on the Gamecube. It's my first playthrough and I'm astonished by how much modern 3rd person games owe to this game. Ubisoft did some groundbreaking work here. I'm having a lot of fun wall-running and jumping around the scenery. On the other hand, I'm hating the combat system. It's awful and tedious and slow.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 12, 2023 20:25:37 GMT -5
I'm playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on the Gamecube. It's my first playthrough and I'm astonished by how much modern 3rd person games owe to this game. Ubisoft did some groundbreaking work here. I'm having a lot of fun wall-running and jumping around the scenery. On the other hand, I'm hating the combat system. It's awful and tedious and slow. I finally played some a bit a few years ago myself. Think I fell off of it kind of fast because of this issue you pointed out, the combat felt awful. Even for its era, character action games or some decent action platformers like Maximo were a thing. I didn't like how floaty and weird the sword stuff felt in PoP. Has a ton of fans though so maybe I'm the weird one. lol
Ex: Didn't you beat a PS2 Armored Core kind of recently? Would be curious to revisit your review/thoughts if it's out there.
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Post by Ex on Sept 12, 2023 20:42:16 GMT -5
I'm astonished by how much modern 3rd person games owe to this game. When it comes to the parkour mechanics, yes. I agree the combat's not great. I beat Sands of Time back in 2004, and I do recall combat was the aspect I didn't enjoy. Sarge is quite the fan of this game though, he may think differently. Didn't you beat a PS2 Armored Core kind of recently? Would be curious to revisit your review/thoughts if it's out there. These are PS2 entries I beat (thus far): Armored Core 2Armored Core 2: Another Agegamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/468555-armored-core-2-another-age/reviews/170143As amazing as AC6 is, I know I'll have no qualms going back to PS2/3 era AC. FromSoftware. That's all that has to be said.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 12, 2023 21:57:10 GMT -5
Hot dang, glad those two held up for you and Another Age was amazing. I think I had more nostalgia for AC2 but yeah, I don't think AC3 was quite as good as those. Going off 20 years here though.
I already worry that I have a rather big issue with Nexus' design compared to those and even AC6. I really do not like how the arena isn't separate. I finally figured it out tonight. Arena fights pop up on the world map like a normal mission. What makes this even weirder is that doing ANY mission or arena fight, moves "time" and you can permanently miss out on a mission or whatever. I know old AC's had some weird grading systems at times, AC6 has the multiple endings thing like most modern FromSoftware. But what Nexus is doing so far seems kind of egregious for my tastes. I really just wish the arena was a separate thing in the menu, like usual.
Still having a blast in other ways though and mirroring the AC6 control scheme a bit is making it more fun too. Moving boost/dash from L2 to Square was very ideal.
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Post by Ex on Sept 13, 2023 10:03:10 GMT -5
doing ANY mission or arena fight, moves "time" and you can permanently miss out on a mission Not a fan of that idea. I'd like to see From release another Arena-centric game. That's what Armored Core: Master of Arena was, and I very much enjoyed it. It wasn't only Arena stuff (though there's tons of that) it had lots of campaign missions as well. What's the difficulty like with Nexus? Anywhere near AC6?
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